When it comes to my musical theatre writing, nothing that’s happened has been planned. Everything’s been the next steps in an organic process in which one thought or action has led to the next without any premeditation on my part.
Mimosa came about in the same way. I didn’t set out to write a show whose primary purpose is to introduce a mainstream Western audience to the notion of plant sentience, intelligence, communication, agency and ethical standing, but one thing led to another, and that’s where I wound up.
I struggled with whether it was “okay” for me to write this. Plant personhood has always been an accepted part of the Indigenous worldview; indeed, Indigenous peoples are the keepers of this knowledge. Was my writing this show illegitimate “appropriation?”
I didn’t know, and I still don’t.. My gut is that knowledge cannot be owned. I continued to struggle with the question until something as unforeseeable as me writing about plant sentience happened, something that made me stop second guessing myself.
A few years ago, Danny and I were commissioned to write a show for musical theatre students at Coastal Carolina University. We wrong a show called, “In My Book,” which was basically a song cycle inspired by the life-stories of the students in the show. It turned out that many of the students had had unusually difficult childhood. Because of that, we felt it was important that the final song in the show be hopeful. We wrote “Bill for Joy.”
Some very supportive friends of mine made the trip from Chicago to Myrtle Beach to see the “In My Book.” One of them, my friend Mimi, fell in love with Built for Joy. A few months later, she told me she was in charge of her church’s fundraising effort, and asked if their choir could adopt Built for Joy to launch her campaign. Danny and I were thrilled to have them do it.
So the fall of 2020, which happened to be when I was struggling with whether I could write Mimosa, I went to Mimi’s church to hear the choir sing Built for Joy. Immediately following the song, the minister spoke. He was young, and new to the parish. He’d only been there a year. He too was launching an effort - I no longer remember what it was — but it was something he didn’t feel qualified to lead. However, he had concluded that he couldn’t wait for someone else to step forward. Therefore, qualified or not, he was going to take it on - with humility. And, as can happen, I immediately decided it was not a coincidence that I was there to hear this at the precise moment I was wrestling with the identical issue.
I stopped second guessing myself. Are there people who are far more qualified than I to write a show about plant sentience? Absolutely. Practically anybody, to be honest. But for whatever reason, I’m the one that did it. And that’s that.